How Do I Know If My Sewer Line Is Clogged?

The giveaway is more than one fixture acting up at once. A slow bathroom sink is a sink problem. But when the toilet gurgles while the washing machine drains, or the tub fills with dirty water when you flush, the blockage is downstream of all of them, in the main sewer line that carries everything out to the street.

The Warning Signs, in Order

Trouble shows up at the lowest drain first, usually a basement floor drain or a ground-floor tub. Watch for water around the floor drain after a load of laundry, a toilet that bubbles when another fixture runs, drains that are slow all over the house instead of in one room, and a sewage smell you can’t trace. Outside, a strip of lawn over the sewer line that stays soggy or unusually green means the pipe may already be leaking into the yard.

What Usually Causes It

In older neighborhoods, the top cause is tree roots. Clay tile sewer laterals, standard into the 1970s, have a joint every few feet, and roots find every one of them looking for water. Once inside, they grow into a mat that snags paper, grease, and everything else. In newer homes the usual suspects are grease buildup, wipes (including the ones labeled flushable), and a sagging low spot in the pipe, called a belly, where waste settles and builds up.

How We Pin It Down

Guessing underground is expensive, so we don’t guess. A sewer camera inspection runs a video head through the line and shows what the blockage is and exactly how far out it sits. Roots and soft clogs we clear with rooter service or hydro jetting, which scours the pipe wall clean instead of punching a hole through the clog. A cracked, collapsed, or bellied pipe needs sewer line repair, and in many yards we can replace the bad section trenchless, without digging up the lawn.

A main line clog never picks a convenient weekend. If drains are backing up at your place in Springfield, Riverton, Lakeside, Cedar Grove, Maplewood, or Fairview, call Summit Plumbing at (555) 123-4567. We’ll find the blockage, show you the camera footage, and walk you through the fix before any work starts.